


Wake me up

by Shadowdianne



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Collab, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-30 23:27:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6446485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/Shadowdianne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'm sorry I couldn't fix it, that I couldn't fix…" Her voice got lost on the woods, floating away. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner" "I'm sorry" Ficked version of Misslane's vid "Wake me up"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wake me up

**Author's Note:**

> A/N Hi there! This is the ficked version of misslane’s vid “Wake me up”. I’m incredibly grateful of having had the opportunity to write such collab with both her and the amazing Fyval who was the one putting her voice for the cover that can be heard on the vid (seriously, amazing)
> 
> As a P.S I want to dedicate this fic to the amazing Spanish WhatsApp group because all the laughs and smiles and so many ideas you all guys spill every single day. You are amazing!
> 
> And there; neither the idea nor the characters are mine, I’m simply translating the images to words and borrowing them to play a little. I promise that I will leave them were I found (alive and sound)
> 
> On with the story!

 

[Link to the original vid](https://www.google.es/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjihqDdrvLLAhUJXRoKHUrjDQEQtwIIHzAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D3dBRn-m6CS8&usg=AFQjCNE7yirYes2VUHCjDXEib4aQ_4Yf6w&sig2=LvPl5G4UhFhd5NmHqosEVw)

Wake me up

_Storybrooke, 2011_

The moonlight caressed the surface of the tranquil waters of Storybrooke’s deck, the reflection of the opal, iridescent light bathing as well the sleepy town in where a few twinkling lights could be seen here and there. The ones at the other side of those closed windows unaware of the invisible ship that floated softly on those placid-looking waters. The nighttime tide licked the salt-coated hull inside of which a brunette woman sat, back completely straight and cold soulless eyes which were set in a rusty old book she hold between her hands, her lips turned into a tight line. Distaste and disdain poured out of her as she read page after page of the thick book, each page showing names and numbers that seemed to change themselves as the lecture progressed.

The hold of the ship, barely lighted by the candles the woman seemed to have lighted around her, was filled with the fumes that emanated from the small caldron the woman had in front of her, the surface of the liquid that sloshed inside of it covered by those same white, blubbery vapors.

Cora had expected many things ever since she had been a young woman and had given her word to the man who called himself the Dark One; she had committed crimes and evil deeds with the only purpose of achieving the power and position she deserved. She had given the best parts of herself to the wishful and deep rooted knowledge that she, one day, would see her daughter achieve the position she had once dreamt she would own.

With a sigh of distress the brunette woman stood and close the book which protested as she left it on the closest surface available, her eyes already glowing with her power as rills of magic came off her hands. She had given and had lost too much just to see Regina- the daughter who she had tried to teach and nurture, throw the past and future of her own life, refusing to take hold of the power she had given her back when she had had all of her life in front of her; all the reigns of the Enchanted Forest open and ready to be taken away from the hands of lazy and egotistical rulers who couldn’t see the next greatest step.

The potion swirled one more time as the magic she had just infused on it disappeared, the candles blinking for a second as Cora’s eyes shone one last time malevolently, pain hidden on them though soon enough it was devoured by the smirk she let it part her lips.

She would teach her daughter, she would teach them all.

And as she closed her eyes and turned to face the full body mirror she had brought with her back from the Enchanted Forest she let that smirk grow, her chin rising as the just brewed potion bubbled behind her, her right hand caressing the surface of the glass, her magic doing the rest.

Jumping between time and space was certainly a difficult task, one that in a world without magic was even more complicated. Jumping between realities however was something she was up to try, especially because she needed to rewrite what had been destroyed, what Regina hadn’t done. And she hadn’t lied when she had said that she always would know better.

With that in mind she turned and transferred the new potion to the vial she had prepared for that effect near the cauldron, the glinting vase disappearing promptly on the corners of her cape. With one last step the Queen of Hearts was gone, an empty hold welcoming Hook when he came down in order to ask his ally what would be the next step. Not knowing that the reality he was in had changed forever.

* * *

 

_Enchanted Forest_

The moon shone timidly behind thick clouds, the meek light it gave painting shadows on the high and sheer ramparts that protected both the Queen and her knights. Inside the castle the candle lights helped the moon in such late hour in where only the night guards pullulated the long corridors of the place.

The guards and the Queen, who was looking at the displayed map of her territories at the top of the highest tower of her castle, a place she had renamed as her own ever since she had get herself crowned. Her brown eyes glowed with tiredness as she looked at newly created frontiers between the slowly waning kingdoms that shared limits with her and her own reign. War had just ended on the northern part of said frontiers, the power she hold as The Evil Queen bigger than ever.

And yet she found herself turning her hands into tight fists as she looked at the map, names and places even far more remote from her than ever, titles a swirl of letters she couldn’t remember or even care about anymore. The brown irises of the Queen turned dull and pained as her hand went to where the ring she normally would have worn under her dress came back with nothing, the ring now lost for her.

The long earrings she wore grazed her neck when the sound of a heavy door opening and closing make her tilt her head, the aura of magic that accompanied that sound enough for her to recognize who had been the culprit. She, however, didn’t turn, not yet, and she let herself wait while she flattened her hands against the carefully embroidered material of her dress.

“Mother” She whispered when the presence stilled at her back, the tip of her tongue touching her lips, briefly and quickly as she tried to steel her voice just like she did every time she talked with her subjects.

“Regina” The older woman’s voice answered, the obvious amusement on just that word making the Queen close her eyes and sigh, knowing she hadn’t managed to deceive the woman. “I thought you would be asleep by now, the troops will be here tomorrow and is expected of you to be there when that happens”

Scowling like a child the most powerful Queen of all reigns turned and eyed the woman that stood in front of her, her chin raising as her voice came in a growl from her chest, her lips curling in the distaste of someone who had already fight far too much for their own liking. “I know what is expected of me, mother”

“Then do it” Cora replied with a curt smile that did nothing but make the more than ever chill between the two of them to grow. Closing the distance between her daughter and herself Cora let her eyes wander up and down her daughter’s clothes, the same ones she had been wearing at the banquet hours before. “Don’t make me repeat things you should already know”

Regina tightened her jaw, her muscles working under her skin, eyes shining with anger as the older woman eyed her haughtily.

“And why are you here, mother?” She finally asked, the cold voice only warmed by the rage it could been heard on the endings of her words.

Cora smiled sweetly at that, the jewels she had on her own dress capturing the weak light that came from the open balcony of the Queen’s chambers at her back, the shadows that created the light in the balustrade of the balcony touching her feet as she stood, the breeze of the night suddenly seeming to be filled with a hidden threat.

“The murmurings of the knights you have so keenly put in front of my chambers wouldn’t let me sleep. I figured that I could come here and look what could be our next step”

The Queen didn’t say anything at that, unable for a second to respond to the other woman’s words. Yet, as Cora kept eying her Regina took a step closer towards her, the map and figures that rested on the table at her back eyeing the two women, impassible.

“Our next step?” She asked, smooth skin wrinkling when she frowned, red lips parting as her hands clutched the fabric of her dress. “What do you want mother, another war?”

Cora sighed, exasperatedly “If we can’t manage to take the lands we must have without a fight then yes, we will march against those who think that can stand against you” Her voice was stern yet slow, as if talking to a child and Regina felt the burning shame of not having been good enough for the older brunette hitting on her face, the feeling soon replaced though by the repulsion it caused her the recalled act of her being the Queen feared and hated for all in those lands.

Eyes narrowed, Regina twisted her back enough for her left hand to touch the edge of the wooden table at her back, a protective stance Cora scoffed at with just a punctuated smirk and a slowly and carefully raised brow. The older woman doing nothing when the Queen herself stood menacingly in front of her in the ways kings and Queen cowered at.

“I won’t do it, not anymore”

The words had been uttered by the brunette in the early days of Cora’s arrival, words that had turned into silence as the older brunette pressured her into taking what both of them owned. Hearing them again made Cora shook her head, eyes as cold and sharp as the swords of the ones she would sent in the next few hours as much as Regina said otherwise.

“Then what would you do? Fight me?” The stupid notion made Cora laugh succinctly “Don’t be stupid dear, we both know you will do it”

The Queen swallowed thickly, her eyes going to the secret pouch she knew the older woman had in one of the multiple folds her dress had, pouch in where a particular potion waited for her to rebel.

Cora’s smirk grew. She had been right, she had made it right by twisting realities. With a casual shake of her hand the flask appeared between her fingers, the liquid inside of it glinting menacingly as she regarded her daughter once again.

“Or would you want to do it? You have only two options; do as I say or I will be sure that you end up taking the contents of this potion. I won’t see your future being thrown away by you once again”

The air of the room crackled as the magic of the two women seeped between their fingers, Regina’s out of anger, Cora’s full with warning rage and as Cora waited for her daughter’s senses to come back she thought once again on the things she had already accomplished, future and past merging together in the reality she had helped to create.

Why would she need a happy ending? She mussed with dark glee, she already had the kind of future she was supposed to have.

“No” Regina said, standing as tall as she was, regal and dark on her anger.

“Then I will see you die, little by little, minute by minute, until there is nothing left of you dear” Cora replied. “I’m your mother but I won’t let you stand between the bright future you are destined to have and yourself. You are worth far much more than false morals that aren’t even yours to think about in the first place.”

Sure of her winning she didn’t foreseen her daughter’s movement and consequent magic that made her loss the flask, the potion disappearing from her hold only to reappear back on the younger brunette’s hand.

 “I won’t be your puppet anymore, mother” The Queen seethed, dark rimmed eyes glowing with power and determination, full red lips trembling with pure ire. “If you want your future over my death so be it”

The vial was uncorked with one sweep of the Queen’s hands, the woman not even bothering to disguise the morbid glee of her actions.

She had been a prisoner of the older woman’s plans since Cora had appeared with dark words filled with hate and that vial, vial she had managed to keep away from her ever since her arrival at the castle. On her hands she had turned into the most feared woman in all the reigns, the one which her name was both hated and feared in ways she would have never thought possible. She had conquered and burned, leaving the silhouette of her emblem in cities she couldn’t barely remember their names anymore.

And as evil, as consumed by the rage she still felt over the loss of Daniel - the loss that had marked the beginning of her life as the woman she was now she couldn’t take it anymore. She had been the puppet, the child’s game, of too many people, too many to even try to defend her actions anymore. But she wasn’t going to give them anything more of herself, not after tonight.

Cora’s eyes widened ever so slightly before she managed to take a hold on her actions, her stance, still tight and calm, faltered for a second.

“No, we both know that you won’t drink that. So put it down and we can fix this”

And perhaps in any other moment Regina would have indeed listened to such words but she was filled with anger, with the trapped feeling of one who has been toyed with for far too long and it was the dismissive words the ones that made all the remaining doubts she could have hoarded inside of her to disappear. She had tried, had fought, had become, and yet she would never be enough.

With one decisive movement she swallowed down the potion, its stale taste making her twist her face as she felt its power filtering between her cells.

“Go” She said as she felt the constricting pain on her ribs, normal due to the corsets she normally wore, becoming worse, her chest burning as she tried to breathe. “You have done more than enough, mother”

And Cora knew that she, indeed, have had. The words she had said back on the ship of a reality that didn’t exist anymore like the one she had known coming back to her.

_She would teach her daughter, she would teach them all._

* * *

 

_Storybrooke, 2014_

_She smelt the odor of concrete and gasoline, light blinding her when she started to open her eyes, a silhouette she couldn’t at first recognize and later on saw as Henry hovered over her. Her mouth felt parched, as well as the back of her throat, a dull ache on the crown of her head, her fingers feeling cold and unresponsive inside the gloves she wore. Her whole body seemed indeed to be freezing and as voices and sounds started to go from a dim sound on the background to a full orchestra that seemed to wash over her and go through her body she let her conscience wander once again._

_“Mom?!”_

“There has been an accident” Snow said, eyes focused on her daughter who had just opened the door of their still shared apartment. Emma looked at her and David, the man standing at the other side of Snow just like as the pixie-haired woman had asked him too. Puzzled.

The former bandit had been the first one to pick up the phone when a deeply sobbing Henry had called to the apartment, not knowing where Emma was. The teenager had mumbled everything to her, from the moment he had been talking to his mother to the second Regina’s eyes had switched off, as if a light had been taken away from them.

“Her body collapsed” The boy had said, the unmistakable sounds of a hospital seeping between the silences he made in order to gather his thoughts. “I… didn’t see what happened. One minute she was there and the other…”

“Did she hit her head?” Snow had asked, a part of her mind detecting the irony of being her from all people the one actually asking for Regina’s well-being. Ironies though, didn’t have an ounce of humor at that moment, Henry’s terror obvious on the way the dark-haired boy seemed to be clutching his phone, his voice breaking sometimes; a reminiscence of the boy he had been less than a year ago.

“Wha… Viktor says he can’t tell me and mom… Emma is not answering me, I thought that she… could be there”

Snow had closed her eyes at that point, her mind going back to a few hours prior where Emma had said over her morning cup of coffee that she would go to walk around the city’s perimeter.

“She won’t take any much longer” She had answered, wishing that those words would actually become true. “Do you want me to go there?”

The boy answered quickly at that, the rushed intake of breathe he needed to take before talking breaking the woman’s heart.

“No, I… I will be fine, just say mom where I am, yes?”

The next thing Snow had heard had been the sound of a dead line, her worries accompanied by the silence that came from it.

“Mom?” Emma’s worried voice made Snow wake up from her reverie, her daughter’s green-shaded eyes looking at her as David remained silent. Worry was written on her face, her muscles tense on her stance, as if she was about to bolt.

Something hat Snow actually feared she would do. She wasn’t stupid, neither David nor her were. And if there was something they knew would be difficult was saying Emma that Regina was in the hospital.

“Is Henry okay? Is…”

Emma never finished that sentence but Snow knew the rest, the words etched on the other woman’s slowly darkening eyes, her stance turning from tense to worried, fear pouring out of her.

“Regina” She started, taking a sharp intake of breathe when the blonde woman turned, seeming to be ready to start running away from both David and herself. “She is at the hospital, Henry is with her”

She felt David’s arm around her, steading her when Emma merely turned and eyed them, blankness covering her face. “Alone?”

“He wanted for you to know” David replied, Snow closing her eyes in silent gratitude for that. Neither of them had time to say anything else though, the door’s apartment closing behind a swirling blonde who only worried on grabbing her car keys. Snow sighed and looked at her feet as that happened. She had tried as best as she had been able to.

Outside, the sound of an accelerating car filled the afternoon’s air; Emma didn’t even bothered on fastening the belt, the only words that kept echoing inside her mind Regina’s and Henry’s names. Anger at her own self for having been so far of cell range looking back at her on her dark irises when she glanced at the rear mirror, her right hand pressing the honk as she passed next to a few cars in the main street, not even bothering to look twice at them.

_“An accident”_

_“There has been an accident”_

She barely registered she had indeed parked in front of the hospital and had existed the car until the day nurse looked at her from behind her desk. Fortunately for her, who wasn’t able to voice her doubts, the worst-case scenarios possible running inside her mind, the woman seemed to know what she was looking for because she pointed at her right, a semi-closed door welcoming her when she turned in that direction.

Henry was the one who turned to look back at her when she crossed it, the boy’s cheeks red and showing the paths of where salted tears had rolled down. She hugged him fiercely when the boy stood from the chair he had been crouched at, worry dimming slightly once she was finally able to do something than just imagine what was happening.

“What happened?” She asked, her voice strange on her ears, far too high for what was normal of her, coming out as if she was being choked by the worry that still laced her vocal chords.

“She collapsed” The boy replied back, still hugging Emma. He was almost as tall as her know and Emma found herself patting his back, not knowing what else to do apart from that. “Whale…”

In that moment the doctor entered with a stretcher, the rest of Henry’s words lost on both his mouth and Emma’s ears as the vision of Regina, a pale-looking Regina, filled their vision. The doctor explained very little to her though, Regina weakly saying over and over again she that was fine, that she was ready to be dispatched. And as worry started to ebb away Emma found herself looking at those brown eyes who seemed to see nothing but Henry, the boy hugging the older woman as soon as Regina was back on her two legs, hair and clothes slightly rumpled, normal sassiness vacant from her eyes but still her.

Emma eyed the hugging couple, wishing to be there with them, to have the opportunity of doing so. Her eyes landed from Regina’s profile to her hands, tightly fisted around Henry and smiled sadly. That wasn’t the time and she knew it, even though she saw the strangely worried look on Regina’s features a second, looking as if she wasn’t ready to let him go.

However, as Regina let go from Henry, the boy smiling and nodding at her in reassurance, the older woman looked straightly at her, words of gratitude, words of understanding, burning their way out of the two of them.

They didn’t talk though, it wasn’t the time, it never was.

And as later that day both Snow and Charming ate in the dinner with the three of them Emma let herself bask in what being with Regina was, the lingering worry of what had happened hours before starting to disappear every time she eyed Regina and saw her there, eating the fries she had reluctantly asked Ruby to serve them. Regina looked back at her for a second, a final nod passing between the two of them.

She was okay, and that was what mattered, Emma thought as she stole one of those fries, smug smirk directed at the older woman who scoffed under the sound of Snow’s laugh.

She was okay.

* * *

 

_Enchanted Forest_

Burning, pain, loss, death.

The queen’s head felt heavy, her whole body, in turn, feeling week, unable to hold anything more than a feather’s touch. The monarch swallowed as she took a look on her surroundings, finding herself alone, the map she had had on the table now on disarray, a part of it teared apart from where she had grabbed the edge of the table it was in, trying to keep standing.

The queen let go of the now empty bottle, her movements shaky, her chest heaving as the heavy fabric of her dress seemed to clung on her body, her muscles screaming for release.

Her mother’s words came back to her, the cruelness of it making the brunette to almost snort, almost.

_“Then I will see you die, little by little, minute by minute”_

She would fight though, she had been crowned Queen and Queen she would be, no matter what.

* * *

 

_Storybrooke 2014_

The sound of Regina’s laugh made Emma look back at where both the brunette and Henry were standing, the wooden walls of the warehouse they were in making the sound grow warmer. The sound of the sea and the smell of the salt filled the air and whereas it was something Emma had grown to detest it didn’t bother her in that moment, happy to be able to share a walk with both her son and the former queen.

It had been two days since the accident, Regina, tired but still herself, had insisted on going back to the mayoral’s office the next day not showing anything else but stubbornness when Snow had meekly suggested a day of rest. The woman had commented smartly that she had endured falls far more dangerous for her than the one it could be caused by a simple fainting. Both magical and natural. It would be ludicrous of her to even think about taking a free day when the job of a mayor was, just like the one of a Queen, daily.

The brunette had indeed go to work, Emma’s latent worries still making her drop by at lunch trying to ask as casually as possible how she was. The brunette-haired woman smiling at her and the salad she had brought, yet answering her with one of her usual sass, one that made Emma to actually breathe, relieved. She had known she was being stupid but something in that fall, in the way the news had arrived at her perhaps, had make her feel worried.

Still, with the light that warmed the wooden structure and illuminated the faces of both Henry and Regina a few feet from here those worries were nothing but passed memories.

It had precisely been Archie the one who had suggested a walk to Regina, the redhead having heard of the woman’s fainting and suggesting the cause to be just due to the stress and lack of sleep the woman could be suffering from. Regina had scoffed at the possibility but had accepted the good man’s recommendation of taking a walk, Henry jumping in the second he knew about the idea, Emma proposing herself to be there in case the brunette would fall again.

Which was a feeble excuse but the only one Emma had come up with. And she wouldn’t be the one to ask herself of the why’s behind her decision, nor would she let her mother ask those questions.

Her smile freeze in place though when her eyes met with Regina’s, the pupils of the older woman shrinking back as her head fell, her whole body soon hitting the ground with the cry of Henry’s echoing behind the thud. Worry filled the blonde’s woman body as she approached the brunette, her body unresponsive as she tried to move her, the back of her head providing the words one teacher had said her back in those days when she had actually attended school.

_“Careful with the neck”_

The man had been old and talked with a lisp, the name already lost on her memory, but his voice came back as she closed her hand around Regina’s arm, panic and worry filling her as she called her name, waiting, hoping, for the older woman to look back at her, to open her eyes and command her to free her from her grasp.

It didn’t happen though, after minutes of pleading and asking, Henry’s voice turning deep with worry and barely concealed tears Emma realized that Regina wasn’t indeed going to open her eyes, not for now.

“Archie said she needed to rest” Henry whispered, crouched at the other side of the brunette’s body and Emma swallowed, suddenly remembered of the real maturity of the boy at her side.

“How about we poof her and put her in bed then?” She replied, trying to sound much calmer than she was. Regina hadn’t suffered any recent injured, nor had she been in any fight. It was unnatural for her to keep passing away and the dreed she had felt two days ago when her mother had told her that an accident had occurred came back to her.

_“She can’t be ill”_ A voice whispered inside of her _“Can she?”_

She still couldn’t stop to think about that possibility; Henry was scared and Regina’s first thought would always be Henry. She needed to be sure the boy was alright. Or Regina would positively roast her no matter how friendly with each other they were supposed to be.

“Hold me tight” She whispered and of they went.

However, once the sun was down, with just the light of a reading lamp to illuminate her, the blonde found herself unable to sleep, questions about Regina’s condition swirling on her mind. In any other given moment she would probably have swatted them away, aware that Regina was just not only one of the strongest women alive but also capable of doing magic; colds didn’t faze her and the idea of her being anything but healthy was ridiculous. Still, there was something about the dull light on those brown eyes, the slack look that seemed to appear in Regina’s face just before passing away, the way she felt cold, clammy, almost as if some part of her wasn’t exactly there anymore, that had Emma biting her lips, unable to think on anything else.

She had read every post possible on the internet about Regina’s fainting, every crazy question, every silly answer and she had come back with nothing. Crossing her arms and letting her digits play with the fabric of her jumper she wore she grasped the seams, tightly pinching them in worry. She shouldn’t be worrying.

Should she?

_Silk, warmth, the lack of light. The feelings that welcomed her back when she opened her eyes made her feel dizzy, as if something wasn’t right. However, it took her seconds to get rid of such feeling_ , _the fabric of her pajamas sliding against the covers around her as her head cleared, her back straightening itself as she stood up, a look of loss on her face._

_Home, she realized, she was home._

Charming’s household was quite on the early hours of morning, the silence of the first hours in where the sun started to paint colors on the wooden surfaces the one that welcomed Emma who with tired eyes kept her mind thousands of miles away from there; Regina name coming back at her every time she crossed her eyes.

The image seemed burned in the insides of her eyelids, the way her whole body had wanted to reach for Regina’s still swirling inside her, her instincts asking her to go back and be sure that the former monarch was indeed alive and well.

Which was silly since Regina had promised her she was indeed healthy. And yet her voice had lacked its usual purring tone, the one that made Emma stop and sigh, her eyes, her stance, all the things that made Regina the woman she was dimming, like the wax of a candle too tired to hold its light anymore.

Looking at her left where a hand had touched her arm the blonde nodded at David, the man’s bleary eyes accompanied by the blue shirt he always wore to the station. The blonde reached for her watch, realizing she was indeed already on duty even though neither her brain nor her body seemed ready to such task.

“I feel helpless” The blonde whispered instead, letting her head fall into her father’s shoulder. David sighed and tucked her head under his chin, kissing her temple as he did so. He didn’t know what to say, the moment he had seen Emma’s eyes turning into two panicked holes still engraved on his mind.

And Emma knew she shouldn’t be thinking like that, she shouldn’t be worrying like that but there was something there, a feeling, the ghost of an idea, which seemed to be more powerful than every reassuring word she kept receiving.

_“If it happens again…”_

Unfortunately the next time happened in the middle of Main Street less than a few hours after her promise as both Henry and her walked Regina in order to make her eat something sugary enough to keep her blood pressure up. The sudden paleness of the woman’s face was the only clue Emma had before Regina collapsed, her whole body hitting the floor as Snow and a few curious onlookers who had been near the group of three approached.

Perhaps, Emma thought somberly as she crouched in front of Regina, her voice panicked and scared as she took on the obvious coldness on Regina’s skin once she touched it, the dimmed light of early autumn not enough to warm her up, the reason why they were indeed so interested was just because Regina had been the Queen, the Evil Queen.

A notion she shouldn’t be thinking about and yet the feeling of helplessness was starting to get her, titles and names swirling inside her name as it happened. Grabbing the older woman’s arm strong enough to leave a bruise she nodded to herself, and most importantly to Henry, as she thought again on her promise.

She would do something, magical or not magical, she would help Regina with whatever that was happening to her.

-.-

The eerily sounds that always seemed to surround Storybrooke’s graveyard felt to be even more louder that morning, the cold air sweeping between the leaves of the trees, the hidden song it chanted enough to make the blonde look around her a few times before crossing the doorjamb of the dark, mostly abandoned, Mills’ family vault. The door was slightly ajar and as she entered dead leaves and dust entered behind her, sweeping the floor with the wind that carried them. It had been a while since Regina had been there and as little skilled as Emma was with magic that wavering feeling of power in a place where she had always felt strangely invigorated wasn’t lost on the blonde.

Humming to herself she began the descent of the steep steps, her foot hovering over the last one, the room where Regina had been there in the past now cold and dark. Only the shadows of books and vials were silhouetted enough by the light coming from the same stairs she was still in to be distinguished and as she finally took a step on the dusty floor stone she felt almost an electric shock when the place reacted to her own magic illuminating itself, the swishing wind of outside almost vanishing completely, the atmosphere of the place seeming to grow and decrease, like an animal ready to pounce.

“Hello?” She asked, not exactly sure if she was indeed being heard. For what she knew the place was mostly abandoned holding an incredible amount of ingredients and books Regina first and Cora second had brought with them from the Enchanted Forest. A few of them were even from Zelena but those were mostly hidden away and weren’t exactly many to begin with.

However, that hidden knowledge was the one Emma had go there to find, her green eyes going from book cover to book cover, trying to find one written in an idiom close enough to her for her to understand it.

She almost smiled at the memory of Regina eyeing her with disdain as she tried to learn Elvish.

_“You will need that knowledge”_ She had said and the blonde’s ghost-like smile disappeared as she also remembered her own grumpy response.

_“I will have you for that”_

Sighing deeply she turned away from the books, neither of them written in something recognizable enough, her shadow creating a mirage in the mirror on the far end of the vault that made her jump, the lights of the place seeming to dim with her momentary loss of concentration and as she swallowed deeply she took a step closer to the reflecting surface, the pale glow that came from it stronger now as the candles kept dimming.

“Regina?” The green eyed woman muttered, suddenly fearful that the former queen had indeed put a trap for the ones who dared to enter in her vault. Already preparing herself for an attack she almost missed the way the mirror glowed and morphed, its surface seeming almost liquid as magic touched it.

The air on the blonde lungs was knocked out of them when a whisp of magic touched the glass, the mirror now showing a figure the blonde didn’t had problems on recognize.

Regina.

And at the same time The Evil Queen.

The blonde frowned at such illusion, looking at the mirror dubiously. The Queen the mirror was displaying was sick-looking and pale, her lips moving as if she was about to say something but nothing the blonde was able to hear came to the other side of the image.

The woman swallowed as the Regina of the other side seemed to try to regain her breath, the way she looked painfully familiar for the blonde in that moment.

It couldn’t be, and yet… Emma turned, closing her eyes as she walked away from the mirror and the vault, unsure of what to do with such information, not able to process it, not yet.

That night though she found herself at the door of one particular brunette’s house, one who answered the door with a frown and a tight grasp on the doorjamb, trying to keep herself steady. The brunette looked as astonishing as always and Emma needed a few seconds to remember why she had go there but at the end it was the tightened jaw of Regina the one that made her take a step forward, entering inside the mansion and letting the door close behind her.

As Regina kept looking at her, confusion written on her face, Emma eyed the grey ensemble the older woman wore;, her mind going back to the time Regina had answered the door, worry written all over her face and the name of her son pouring from her lips the second the not yet teenager walked past the two of them.

During almost her whole adult life Emma had made a living of catching liars, her own sixth sense helping her in order to do that. She had catered the truth, refusing to lie to herself about the reasons of why she did what she did, of her own past. That day, though, the day she had met Regina, she had told herself a lie that she had tried to make her truth for the longest of times.

That she didn’t care of what the other woman thought about her.

That she didn’t care for her.

Clenching her own jaw when she saw the pain swarming Regina’s pupils she thought again on the vision in the mirror, the way the queen had seemed to be clutching her midriff, unable to do anything else.

And it was perhaps the fact she had passed a long time already fighting against curses and magic but that image was the most unsettling thing of all, the one that made her reflect on Regina, on the relationship they had, the relationship they had turned from something toxic to something…

“Emma?”

Regina’s voice lacked its usual deep tone, the new tone full of tired pain, the one someone already has gotten used to but is still there, lurking. Blinking owlishly the younger woman eyed her hands, now clenched and glowing slightly under the cold lights of Regina’s hall.

“You know how much I hated you?” She started, only to laugh mirthlessly and shake her head. “Scratch that, I never hated you, I envied you, I wanted…”

The brunette didn’t say a word, her eyes flickering for a second to her right, where the stairs that led to the second floor were, probably checking that Emma’s visit hadn’t woken Henry up.

“That’s the word, right?” Emma continued, her voice, steady until now, starting to break in awareness, the lights of the hall shinning against her eyes when she finally raised her face. And as much as her eyes were starting to burn she choked down the tears, not wanting to cry, not wanting to admit the prospect that she was scared of something she still wasn’t able to know what it was. “Want, I wanted to show you, I wanted to be better, I wanted…”

“Em…” Regina began again but she was cut short but a murmur, one so quiet, so soft and yet so strong that broke her voice in two and made her unable to say anything else.

“I wanted for you to want me as much as I wanted you”

Regina fell silent, her eyes unable to focus on Emma anymore, her bottom lip quivering slightly trapped under the name she had tried to said. The younger woman shrugged and sighed, the tears now bubbling right behind her pupils, asking to be released. Her leather jacket seemed heavy all of a sudden, her arms and chest unmoving as she kept waiting for an answer. One that never came.

“I love you” She finally said and the tears fell free, leaving behind paths she tried to clean with her right hand, drops glowing on her eyelids the second she ducked her head, unshed tears still waiting inside.

Regina didn’t answer, not with words, but she too cried. One single tear that rolled down her cheek as she looked at her side, not wanting, not able, to look at Emma anymore, her shoulders shaking, her arms hugging her torso, debilitated enough for not being able to do anything else.

“I just…” Emma continued, doubtful, her voice trembling, “I just wanted to tell you, I just wanted to know…”

“I knew” Regina finally replied, her voice as soft as Emma’s had been. “I know”

It was enough, even though Emma’s entire being ached, she realized it was enough.

Regina saw her leave with her eyes glazed, her own words trapped behind her lips.

-.-

_Stone, cold, darkness. She tried to grasp the moving figures in front of her, tried to open her eyes above the surface of darkness she was facing._

_Nothing._

_“Regina?!”_

“We found her in her vault”

Snow words sounded as tired and worn out as her eyes showed, her skin pale under the poor lights of the station. And as she looked at her daughter in front of her she licked her lips, biting them while trying to say something else, coming up with nothing, the uneasy feeling of déjà vu slowly choking her.

_“There has been an accident”_

Emma was looking at both David and her with the same lost look on her face, her eyes turning from deep green to stormy grey, her lips quivering as she heard the news and a part of Snow saw the way Emma’s hands turned into fists, her knuckles turning white as she looked at them.

The light shadowed parts of her daughter’s face, planes and curves depicted in a chiaroscuro that showed perhaps too well the unshed tears that were starting to build up in the rim of the blonde’s eyes.

Same tears she now could feel also waiting inside of her to be shed.

Less than a month, less than a month since she had had the feeling, since she had talked with Emma and had feared for something that could only be described as a shift, a tilt of something she hadn’t yet understood what it was. Magic, perhaps? Rumplestiskin didn’t offer many options and the other magic user who could answer…

She closed her eyes, the weight of her coat suddenly becoming the only thing she could focus on, David’s hand at the small part of her back heavy and uncomfortable all at once.

“Emma….” She started and for a second her daughter’s eyes flickered.

Anger, worry, regret.

“Is she okay? Does Whale know about this?” Her voice rose in an impossible tone, her lips trembling against the words, not even trying to bother pronounce each word, just a blur Snow tried her best to understand it.

She closed her eyes and shook her head, her hands coming to firmly clasp in front of her body. “She is not opening her eyes”

The words hit Emma like a wave and as David tightened his grip she was able to hear on the peripheral line of her mind the clinking sound of keys hitting the ground as her hands opened, letting the object drop. Chest heaving, her muscles turning into steal as she tried to remain upright.

“How, how can she not…. Did she hit her head?”

_Weightless body, lost eyes, pale and pained expression, one Snow looked at as she tried to call Regina out of her reverie, names and screams, pleadings, nothing worked._

“We don’t know”

“How do I stop this?” And she was no doctor, she no nurse, she was no magic expert and she knew that but she didn’t care about it in that moment.

Snow heard the words and sighed, David looking between the two of them in confusion, asking for a clarification he wouldn’t get. But Snow knew, of course she knew, she knew the fear, the way the voice trembled and broke, the way Emma’s eyes only seemed focused on something that wasn’t quite there with them.

She knew, she had known perhaps for maybe even longer than Emma, she had known in the way a mother always knows.

“We will find a way” She heard herself saying but she didn’t say something else, the way Regina’s eyelashes kept fluttering but never quite opening coming back to her, making her feel nauseated and lightheaded all at once. There was something there, something she… “We will help you”

-.-

The house felt empty and silent as Emma stared at the white ceiling, the weight of loneliness creeping up her column as she thought. Henry had poured himself on the book, hoping to find something there, talking about Author’s powers and loopholes and things she had stopped long ago of trying to understand.

It was daunting though the way both the teen and herself felt the same anguish sensation that there was something there, something they couldn’t quite see but feel nonetheless. And it wasn’t just the vision of the mirror she had seen back in the former queen’s vault. It was something else, magic perhaps asking for help itself.

And it was just a bunch of faintings but there was the sensation of sand already starting to ebb its way away from her fingers, the feeling of being losing something what made her heart scream and her throat close. And Henry was the same, his entire resolve on finding something so it could explain her mother’s behavior.

Arms crossed in front of her chest and eyes lost Emma thought again on Regina’s face; Whale had stated that there was little he could do, the reasons of why Regina kept fainting not seeming to be medical in the slightest. That had been the statement that had signaled Snow’s contribution; Regina would stay with them. Neither the nurses nor the doctor had complained about it and for a second Emma felt again the mix of gratefulness and anger that had filled her in that moment, Snow looking as heartbroken as she was.

Love, love was, always had been, a powerful word, one she had hated, feared and seen her grown in different moments of her life. Love could be a weapon, a shield and the other’s weakness. Love could kill.

And a she stared at the ceiling, worry burning inside of her, she thought again on the brief talk she had had with Regina, the way the woman had teared up.

She didn’t understand, not yet. But she was adamant that she was going to find a way to make the brunette explain it, if it was the last thing she was going to do.

The memory of the queen came back to Emma, an impossible idea starting to grow inside of her.

If the reason was magical then perhaps…

Perhaps.

The main door of the house was closed soon after that, Emma running towards the wishing well, remembering August words about magic and belief. She wasn’t powerful enough, she didn’t have neither the magic nor the knowledge.

But she had the guts and if there was a way of at least knowing, understanding, what was happening perhaps that was the reason why the vault, the vault of the woman once known as The Evil Queen, had decided to show her that queen.

The well welcomed her silent as ever, vines growing around it, a seeming pulsing light coming out of it, as if it was waiting. Emma approached it carefully, remembering full when what had happened the last time she had been near it, the magical trap Regina had decided to disengage almost seeming to be back, magic thrumming as she touched the edge of the stones that conformed the cylindrical structure.

Licking her lips the blonde woman sighed and closed her eyes. She needed to know, she needed to see if there was something she could do. Because there must need to be a solution, she refused to think otherwise.

And as she thought on the brunette beauty lying on bed purple and gold, colors she had once thought to be purely coincidental but she had learn to know they were in fact their own, both Regina and herself, illuminated the dark fall inside the well, a beam of pure lighting blinding her as her grasp in reality disappeared.

And then, nothing.

* * *

 

_Enchanted Forest_

The first thing that seemed different was the air, the freshness and pure power that seemed to run inside her veins what made her open her eyes and gasp as she tried to regain the rest of her senses. Which took longer than what she would have preferred.

The sunlight barely reached the forest’s floor due to the trees that surrounded the clearing she was in; the color of everything tinted in deep forest green, the air feeling heavy on flowers and rain, almost saturated in yellows and golds.

Her clothes was the second thing she realized was different, both the touch and the feeling of them slightly different than the leather jacket and jeans she had been wearing mere moments before, doublet and ridding pants welcoming her as she eyed her hands, now covered in gloves.

The third thing she saw was precisely the woman she had come to find, the Queen kneeled on the ground, clothed in one of the most simplest ensembles she had ever seen her, frail and tired-looking. At her side a bow and an arrow waited for her and although they seemed deadly the way the brunette was trying to keep upright was what bolted Emma forward, casting just one last look to the place she had appeared and to the stone table in where a single candle seemed to wait for her.

“Regina” She called as she kneeled in front of her, forgetting that she was indeed in front of the Queen, the woman who had been ruthless and pained at the same time, broken and being pulled by the seams of her own sanity. Seeing her, awake even weakened, made her have a silver of hope, hope that everything would be all right.

The difference though, was unavoidable and as she remained kneeled in front of the woman, offering her a hand, the brunette stood as quickly as she was able, picking up the bow and arrow and directing it towards Emma, cold and statuesque at the same time.

“What do you want?”

And it was like seeing her all over again on that damned alternative reality the previous Author had created but instead inside her pupils there was the resentment of the Queen and not the tiredness of the bandit. Although the sassiness the blonde had seen on her the time she had crossed timelines was gone, the cheekiness and seductress aura missing as well.

“I’m… I’m someone who wants to help” She found herself saying and perhaps her voice quivering and broken did the trick because a flicker of curiousness touched the queen’s eyes.

“Have you then, peasant” She asked, the arrow’s tip pointing slightly downwards as she talked. “seen a sorceress on this lands?”

Emma didn’t understood the question, not at first at least, not until she remembered that Regina had seemed to be weary of her magic after the first fainting.

“You are out of magic” She whispered, voice high enough for Regina to listen to it, the cold stare coming back to her.

“Waning, and that doesn’t mean I couldn’t kill you right now if you try any trick.”

The last word oozed with hate and resentment but the little pieces fell back on their places on Emma’s mind.

“I traveled here” She started, hands up, trying to show how harmless she indeed was “From another land. And I came here to tell you…”

“Tell me what?”

From behind her Emma saw the guards she hadn’t seen before, walking towards them, a few holding swords, a few others starting to drag them and she knew she had very little time to speak.

“I’m from another reality” She finally answered, imploring for time. “And in there I know you, Your Majesty.”

The queen’s brows furrowed in confusion for a second before her eyes widened, suddenly understanding.

“The potion” The words were whispered, muttered, but Emma heard them nonetheless.

“Potion?”

The older woman raised her hand and made the guards stop, her eyes faltering for a second, her body seeming to sway before she steeled herself back.

“I was offered a potion” She curtly said “By the same woman my men and myself are currently searching”

“And she forced you to take the potion?” The blonde asked, trying to piece everything together. The chirping birds around the two of them seemed to get louder, as if cackling at her question and for a second she felt the shiver of magic once again.

“That was a decision I took for myself”

The words were cold, burning though Emma’s skin as she thought about them.

“You took a potion that caused you this?”

The Queen eyed at her, still not sure of why she was even talking with the woman in front of her, a sense of connection with her, with the way she looked at her, what made her continue.

“There was no many choices for me at the moment” She offered cautiously.

“And what will happen now?”

The words hurt, perhaps more than what Emma would prefer because they talked about the fear of lose even though she refused to think about that particular path. Yet, she needed to ask that question, needed to see if what she had been feeling was indeed right and not pure paranoia.

And as the Queen raised her eyes and stared at her Emma saw there a raw feeling of fear and loneliness that almost knocked the air of her lungs, the way those brown eyes stared at her the answer of the question she hadn’t wanted to ask, hadn’t know how to.

“Now I will die”

* * *

 

_Storybrooke, 2014_

Her eyes protested when she opened them, the light far too strong for her weakened pupils but Regina was nothing but stubborn and when she finally managed to look at the figures that hovered over her she swallowed, the feeling of a cold cloth touching her skin.

“Regina?” There it was, Snow’s voice “Can you hear us?”

Regina could distinguish both Snow and David, the man having just muttered “I will go see if Henry is still asleep” the words swimming in the vastness that seemed to be her mind, like many other things that seemed to be floating inside of her ever since the first fainting happened.

“Regina?” She heard for a second time, and this time she nodded, weak and meek but still managed to do that in the excruciating debilitating pain she felt inside herself, her heart and brain pounding in equal worry.

“Hen…” She started only to remember David’s words, shaking her head and feeling the cloth slide against her cheek she tried again. “Emma?”

Snow sighed and clenched the cloth, peeling it away as she sat as close as Regina as possible, their long feud seeming to no matter to her anymore. “She left Henry a quick text message, she is trying to find a cure”

“I’m not sick” Regina protested, but as soon as her words were out she knew it was a lie. She was sick, the worrisome part was that she didn’t understood why, the magical contamination the only thing that had come to her mind before her magic starting to ooze away from her.

“Yes, you are” Snow had always been as stubborn as her daughter and Regina found herself smiling weakly at that, her strength quickly waning.

“Tell her…” She started but the words fell flat on her tongue “Tell her that I want her to know, she will understand”

“What do you mean? Regina?”

_Regina!_

* * *

 

_Enchanted Forest_

“Regina?” The blonde asked again as she saw how the other woman’s body suddenly turned, as if she had heard something she wasn’t able to pick up. The guards had surrounded them but after a few quick words with them they had left them alone.

The words the brunette had muttered had been still haunting Emma, the truth in them impossible to fight.

“The potion was created by my mother as her last resource” The queen had told her, still stiff but somewhat softer towards her, her inflection still the one Emma had known to link to the woman Regina no longer was back in Storybrooke but warmer. “And I decided to take that away from her”

“But then what will happen?” Emma had asked, tears building behind her eyes. The idea of Regina sick on her own world paralyzing her.

But the Queen had been unable to provide a good answer, simply falling silent.

Until that had changed that is.

Seeing her fall was something Emma’s brain registered in slow motion, the sudden paleness of her skin the first thing Emma saw as she stumbled backwards, hands falling limp at her sides, her jaw muscles slack.

And as she struggled to breath Emma kneeled once again next to her, this time –now she knew what was happening, fear filtering through the way she grabbed the brunette’s hands, trying to see, hoping that Regina, that the Queen, would once again stood up.

It didn’t happen though.

Like a light, like a flicker, Regina’s eyes seemed to grow cold, to grow empty. The magic that seemed to always surround her ebbing away in one last final burst, her head, hallowed by the leaves that covered the forest floor turning to look at Emma in a movement that seemed to pain her, the sound of her teeth against each other as she tried to talk making the blonde want to close her eyes, not wanting to see more.

And yet she watched, watched because as much as this Regina wasn’t the one she knew back in Storybrooke she was the one she could have been. In another life.

“Please no” She found herself whispering, hovering over Regina, her hands clenching the clothes the woman wore, pulling herself closer, wanting to see, to check, if that chest continued moving, continued breathing. “Regina, please”

And as the Queen eyed the woman in front of her, dizziness starting to take over, she remembered the words her mother had once said. About love, about weakness. About chances. And maybe that was what love felt like; the way it burned inside Emma’s green eyes.

“Take care of her” She thought, one last murmur her mind was able to send to whatever other universe that could laid behind a portal.  To her, to herself.

And as that thought left her she finally closed her eyes. The scream and sobs that followed that the last thing she heard as her head fell.

-.-

She was gone.

Those were the words that repeated themselves on Emma’s mind as she stood in front of the castle that had been Regina’s until so little long ago, the doors tightly closed at her back, her body facing the woods in where the twinkling light of the beginning of dawn created long orange-shaded shadows that almost seemed to be reaching for her.

The magic was running thin, her time on that reality was close to an end and as she eyed the clearing where she stood she closed her eyes, refusing to cry, the thought that perhaps her own reality had changed with the Queen’s death enough for making her feel nauseated; she couldn’t think like that, she just wouldn’t.

And yet, her mind came once and again to the way Regina, that Regina, had looked at her, the way she had felt her own body tremble under those eyes, sudden comprehension filling them apart from the hate and pain she seemed to carry with her wherever she went.

The blonde licked her lips as she adjusted around her the white cape she wore; she had refused to wear black once the Queen had died between her arms, the accustomed mourning beginning the second she was gone. She had tried, tried wearing a black dress that several servants had offered her but she had found herself unable, the almost-too old memory of Regina eyeing Zelena and stating that black was her color haunting her.

Like many other things.

Emma sighed as she stared at her hands, the glowing she could distinguish coming from them almost burning her skin; she had failed.

And maybe it was because she had been a savior for almost too long and she had become accustomed of finally winning even if it was at the last very minute but she felt bile rising from her throat, the idea of failing, of having failed to Regina making her heart bleed.

_“She needs to be okay.”_

It was the only idea that remained on her brain; that Regina needed to be okay. Because she just…

Magic kicked on instinct at that point, a shuddering breath getting caught on her lips when she raised her right arm and where it had been nothing an apple tree appeared. It was, perhaps, too big for being a simple tree and a part of Emma’s mind thought on the brunette woman and how she would have scoffed at such display. And yet as magic finally left her body and Emma found herself starting to the tree, which reached to the sky, its branches glowing in green and red, and nodded.

“Goodbye” She muttered, still holding the hope that once she crossed the portal back home Whale, perhaps Rumple, perhaps the fact that the Queen was no more, would…

Because Regina couldn’t, she just couldn’t, she refused the thought.

Turning and walking away from the castle she walked into the woods, magic taking her to the same exact point she had appeared before. And as the beginning of the night started around her she lighted up the candle that had been resting on the stone table, the flickering little flame releasing a dark yellow glow into the sky.

And there was just something her mind was filled with, one set of brown eyes that called for her, that asked for her.

“Wait for me” She breathed at the same time a vortex of both black and white surrounded her.

It was time, she thought as her vision darkened, the grasp on that reality morphing, disintegrating.

* * *

 

_Storybrooke 2014_

And the next thing she saw in front of her was the road that would lead her to Storybrooke, a beating ray of light magic pulsing at her back for one more second before it disappeared completely.

She never waited though, not completely, and as she run down the road, her clothes back to their normal appearance once again, blonde curls bouncing at her back, both Henry and Regina’s eyes haunted her.

Gripping the gloves that had appeared on her left hand she crossed the town’s border with the woods, the first line of shops and apartments welcoming her as she speeded up; one lingering thought bubbling inside of her.

“Regina”

_Coldness, pain, loneliness. Where was she?_

_Where…_

_Emma?_

“Mom!”

Emma turned at her right, the door of her parent’s apartment just there when a body collided against her.

“Henry?” She asked, breathless and her lingering worry, the needy feeling of morbid curiousness transformed into real fear when she saw the way the teen’s eyes seems completely broken, swarmed in tears and loss. “Henry, is… Regina…?”

The boy hiccupped, his voice breaking before he even tried to explain himself.

“She is gone, she…”

Emma didn’t wait for the next word, neither did Henry who hugged her tightly, tears streaming down his eyes, making Emma feel the acid, bitter taste of pain already feeling her insides. Bolting forward and almost tripping on her own feet as she climbed up the stairs that led to the wooden door the second both her and the boy took a step backwards she arrived at the doorjambs with her heart beating loudly on her mouth.

Inside the place, though, it was David the one who greeted her with a hug, one that knocked the air out of her lungs which burned and twisted as she tried to regain her breath. She chose to ignore the sorrow she could see on the man’s eyes, refusing to acknowledge it.

“Mom?” She asked instead, focusing her eyes on the pixie-haired woman who was now looking at the windows of the apartment, telephone clutched on her right hand, neck muscles strained as she tried not to cry.

But Snow didn’t say anything, not when Emma called her for a second time, still on her father’s arms and in that moment she knew, she knew she had failed.

“She called for you” The other woman whispered as the first sirens began to fill the air.

But Emma didn’t seem able to listen anymore. When the ambulance finally arrived she just stepped right next to the stroller where they were putting the former queen, Henry bawling at her side.

The woman’s body was covered in a shroud and a part of her wondered when that had happened, when everything had changed. She felt as if she had been running towards a door that she had found tightly closed at the end, breathless and lost.

An arm peeked from one side of the shroud, relaxed to almost an unnatural state. The blonde touched those digits, founding them cold, incredibly cold for a woman who managed to create fireballs with her own bare hands. Mechanically extracting her gloves from her back pocket so put one on that hand, pushing the fingers slowly until the coldness of that skin was finally covered.

“I’m sorry” She whispered, tears, regret, dancing in front of her eyes. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here”

But Regina didn’t answer and as her grip on the woman’s arm grew stronger she felt the paramedics beginning to take her away.

“No!” And her voice was broken, sad, irate and there was a moment in where terror seemed to vibrate between her and the men, the memory of darkness, of what she had been able to do, reaching her again like a mantle.

“You need to let her go” David whispered and as Snow hugged her from behind Emma felt her entire body shift, her legs unable to support herself anymore as that cold, lonely arm and the body that laid at her side was removed from her own hand.

And, in that moment, she broke.

-.-

The first light of morning had yet to grow warm enough but the first birds were already starting to chirp between the branches of the forest that surrounded the sleepy town. An almost reddish glow illuminating and reflecting on the windows of those same places that had been once changed forever by a particular woman who was no more.

Emma walked purposefully between the gravestones, nodding towards the graveyard’s keeper who nodded back, not bothering to even ask where the blonde was going. The tired eyes of the man followed the woman’s back until she was too far away for him to distinguish her properly anymore. Dutifully, he wrote down the name of the woman, like every day for the past month ever since the funeral. One that had transformed the city.

Emma, of course, didn’t notice that, nor the way even the light seemed to take a breath with her the second she faced the newest gravestone of the place, the carved letters staring back at her; elegant, just like she would have wanted.

She had tried to understand during that month the answers to those questions she had never quiet made but still Regina had always seemed to know, the memory of the night she had go to the woman’s house embedded on her mind.

“You once told me that you knew” She had said the second week, feet firmly planted on the floor, eyes grey due to the tears that kept falling from time to time. “I came here to tell you that I know”

Because she knew, she had finally known what the Queen’s eyes had said seconds before fading into darkness, she had finally understood what Regina’s single tear had meant. And as painful as that was she had finally understood why the brunette had called her name.

“Henry is doing okay” She breathed, her voice coming in little bursts, her cheeks hollow as she fiddled with the hem of her jacket, unable to stay still. “We are going to put him back in school in a week, Snow… Snow thinks that’s for the best, to let him talk with people of her own age”

She bite her lips before continuing. “David and she are thinking on selling the apartment and buy something bigger for them. I’m… I think I will be staying at your house for a while longer, if you don’t mind. I promise I will take care of it”

The shadow of a thought came back to her but she dismissed just as quickly as it had appeared, still not able to remember the brunette without breaking. Hugging her body she took a step forward, her boots a millimeter away from the stone. “I miss you”

It was a far simpler admission than the one she had made in that same place a month ago, when completely drunken in sorrow she had screamed and bawled. Yet the excruciating pain of yesterday was becoming more manageable today. Still painful, still bleeding, but there.

“I will always miss you” She repeated “And I’m sorry I couldn’t fix it, that I couldn’t fix…”

Her voice got lost on the woods, floating away.

_“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner”_

_“I’m sorry”_


End file.
